¡Ciao!
Today we learned how to date an Italian, cuss at someone in an elevator, as well as come arrivarte in ritardo, desiderare un nuovo computer, frequentare l’università de Saint Louis, e imparare il italiano.
Well, we were not actually encouraged to arrive late to class, but we did manage to cover so many topics today! How is that possible in just 50 minutes? Every class goes by so fast, and every minute is utilized to the max, yet it does not feel forced at all.
#culture #context #vocab #grammar #video #speaking #listening #conjugation #videogames
No, I am not just bobbling my head around reiterating buzz words to sound smart. I am not bubbling over with neologisms as Robin does in the HIMYM episode “The Possimpible” when she makes her video interview, and since she has no catch phrase to end her broadcast, she knits together a silly string of phrases and finishes with “wear a condom”.
Wait, how does all of this fit within 50 minutes?
Magic. I suppose it’s pure magic. Nah, I suppose it’s 25+ years of teaching experience our profe has.
As a teacher of Spanish, one thing I am constantly challenged with is how to fit the incredible amount of content required for the beginning classes into the 50-minute class period. In the 3 freezing cold minutes it took to trot back to my office after class ended today, I realized how much material we have covered in just 12 class days. Sure, it has been 5 weeks and, as language learners, we are also responsible for our own learning outside of the classroom as well. But still, 5 weeks into a beginning, albeit “Intensive” language class, we are already roughly halfway through Chapter 2 discussing Le attività, le materie, le descrizione, and introductions to -IRE, -ARE, and -ERE verbs, specifically mastering Il presenti dei verbi in -ARE, like ‘parlare’, 🗣 ‘mangiare’, 🍽 and of course ‘giocare’ 🤸♀️ ⛹️♀️ 🎲 ⚽️.
As an avid player of calcio ⚽️, tonight I’ll be practicing the paradigm of Il tempo presente del verbo giocare, plus it makes practical sense, since we use that verb about ventidue times per class.
It also appears that it will prove useful to quickly master fare. (Fare is the equivalent to hacer (to do; to make) in Spanish.)
But back to class today –
It was fun, it went so quickly, and we practiced a wide variety of concepts.
- Sempre we start con gli annunci as any thorough and helpful teacher will do.
- Then we reviewed previously learned concepts including, verbs, idioms, and vocabulary from our worksheet “Lingua e cultura: Firenze nel Rinascimento con Assassin’s Creed II“, and viewed a few minutes of the corresponding demo video. Which is how we ended up in un ascensore shouting out as a class ”Stai vicino‘, ‘Sei in gamba‘, ‘Aspetta!”, and ‘Scherzi?“, among other items.
• Stai vicino > stay close!
• Sei in gamba > ‘you’re bright’ / ‘you’re good’
• Aspetta! > Wait!
• Scherzi? > Are you kidding?[*Play the game, and you’ll find out the other colloquial terms…😉 which you can feel free to use the next time you are running through a wire-y, cage-like building, covered in blood, looking hot af, revisiting the memories of your ancestors, and fighting off Templari, while una bella ragazza italiana tells you to ‘chiudi il becco‘. 🐦
We also reviewed and practiced ‘mi piace‘ and ‘mi piacciono‘. Yet this time, in the context of Valentine’s Day.
• Ti piace San Valentino? 😍
Mi piace / non mi piace / amo / odio / è così così / fa schifo (< oh! new word!)
• Sei romantico/a? 😘
Si, son romantico/a. / No, non sono romantico/a.👁 osservare: it is such good practice to reinforce concepts learned through authentic applications.
Such as when Simone was going over the annunci del giorno and he was talking about the Italian tutor available on campus. In form of announcements, he reminded us that she is available at this time and how to make an appointment wither, and that ‘ella si chiama Martina‘, ‘lei è simpatica‘, ‘lei è intelligente‘, ‘lei è italiana e perfettamente bilingue‘.
Oh, I see what you did there. Using what we had studied in our homework last night in a real-life context, hmmmm….sneaky, sneaky Simone. 👨🏫
Last night one of our homework pages consisted of description words , such as….
• allegro/a – alegre – cheerful
• antipatico/a – antipatico/a – disagreeable, unpleasant
• avaro/a – tacaño – stingy
• bravo/a – bueno/a – good; trustworthy, talented
• buffo/a – divertido/a – funny
….and so on…
👨🏫 Simone: “Welcome to dating in Italy” (Cultural input)
• il mio ragazzo 👨💼
• la mia ragazza 👩💼
• il/la mio/a partner
• il/la mio/a compagno/a
• il mio fidanzato > engaged / committed one
• la mia fidanzata > engaged / committed one
• mio marito > husband
• mia moglie > wife
So, from my take on today regarding arriving to ‘going steady with someone’, the dating process is different in Italy than it is here in the US. When you are interested in dating someone, the first part of the relationship does not necessarily consist of individual dates where the two interested parties go out for dinner, or to the Zoo, or an art opening, or out for drinks, or whatever people do for first-stage dating these days….But you go out with their friends and hang out in a group for a while. Only then if you “hit if off”, have you arrived to the ‘il mio ragazzo / la mia ragazza‘ stage.
While we had practiced le attività last night for homework, we made sure to go over it as a class, so we could hear pronunciation, and be in a situation that facilitated practicing the new words in context.
Examples of these new verbs are…
• abitare – vivir – to live
• arrivare – llegar – to arrive
• aspettare – esperar – to wait for
• desiderare – desear – to desire
• incontrare – encontrar – to meet
• lavorare – trabajar – to work
• pensare – pensar – to think
This followed with practicing groups of useful words when discussing life in l’università such as le materie e le descrizione delle materie.
Then, we practiced this new phrases in small groups for a bit.
We closed out the class by playing the game we had been working on the worksheet, Assassin’s Creed II. Simone has a student use la controle and andare through the game, while he comments on words, phrases, and we pay attention as a class, repeating, reading, listening, and commenting on il gioco.
When you were a kid wasn’t watching someone else play il videogioco the worst? Didn’t it make your eye balls bleed and your hands jitter around as you desideri giocare? Watching someone else play your favorite gioco, didn’t it just make you want to scream silently “that’s not how I would do it” or “you’re going the wrong way!”, “ughhhh 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 “, “DESIDERO GIOCARE!!!! This is mia console e il mio gioco, why did this kid even have to come over after school? He didn’t even eat his Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich….🙄”
[*I remember when I was in middle school every Wednesday I would go over to my friend’s house. They had all the Nintendo 64 games. My favorite was Mario Kart, well that’s probably because that is the only game I knew how to play. But, we would hop off the school bus, let our zaini 🎒 🎒 🎒 fall to the kitchen floor, whip up some toaster strudel, smother them with icing, and fall over each other running down the carpet stairs to the family game room and crowd around the TV, and grab up the le console. But…the weekly problem…quattro fratello e quattro amici e quattro console.…🤷♀️ I guess that is a) when math really started to frustrate me, “8 amici – 4 console = 4 amici that cannot play il gioco, and b) when I learned how to practice patience and politeness, as I was a guest in someone else’s house. Of course I don’t mind sitting here on the couch politely watching you all race around the track, that sounds like a gas].
Well, this end-of-class-play-Assasin’s Creed-and-learn-Italian-at-the-same-time-experience is not that. There is a so much else to focus on, and this activity is really for just a few minutes at the end of class to wrap it all together in a fun, interactive, and contextualized way. Well, as I am writing this, just because I am not feeling a maddening desire to rip la console out of my classmate’s hands, doesn’t mean that other students aren’t feeling that way… 🤔 I am sure the 12-year old will come out in all of us, just wait…🤗
In signing off today, I shall keep with today’s theme of relationships and love. 
love > amore ❤️
relationship > relazione 👫 👭 👬
You know, they say, yes, the infamous ‘they’, say a “smile is the universal language”; and in 2004 Cady Herron so “deeply” informed us that she liked math ‘because it’s the same in every country’. Well, none of this is ‘wrong’, but you know cultural concept I think transcends borders?
…pizza. 🍕
Has anyone ever said the word ‘pizza’ to you and it didn’t involve bread and melted cheese? Plus some other kind of delicious topping? If they did, it might because they were bored with you…
🇮🇹 cultura: the idiomatic phrase in Italian ‘Che pizza!‘ can be be synonymous for ‘what a bore’ • ‘Che barba!‘ can also indicate the same meaning , ‘what a bore!’.
“Che pizza!” / “Che barba!” > this conversation is taking so long and is so boring I am literally growing a beard right now (*make sure to include a hand gesture stroking your beard).
…
¡Ciao!
Jonesy's Journey 